[Sunday School] Nehemiah 2

So we're here for week two of me and my uh no PowerPoint slides this time.

Uh hope you're not I'm I'm sorry, Gary, or you you remember PowerPoints.

That's what I remember from last week.

That's what you remember from last week.

Oh well that's that that we had a PowerPoint.

Well, you know.

Um I I'm sorry, just Monday through Friday I work in uh I I think I I'm a high school teacher if you don't know, and and turning on slides is a good way to cure people's insomnia.

Um I I think I've I've learned.

But um next words next week.

Um sorry.

That's all right.

No, I well we'll see if we need it, but I can pull up mine on my phone.

Uh we'll see if Emma's nice enough to share with her mother.

But um it's um uh I think you know, so I don't know.

I'm gonna drag out the whiteboard today and and and we'll see.

But let's see what we remember from last week.

Um if it's nothing, that's okay.

You know.

But all right.

From last week, what have we stood out of our quick romp through ancient Persian history?

Yeah.

Yeah.

A little bit before that.

Yeah.

What about the last chronologically before that was 400 years or so?

Yes.

Yes, it is.

Kind of get Nehemiah, Malachi, uh, a couple of the other minor prophets, but it's yeah.

It's interesting to think about too, like y'all brought it up, that the Arta Xerxes is thinking more of a more amount of strategy of having you know people in Babridum to help with their national security or their I I found it that this is an interesting sort of idea, just sort of their, if you kind of if you read Ezra, because at one point they started, and then this will lead to kind of Nehemiah's sort of despair over this.

People had started rebuilding the walls a little bit during Ezra, and then what we'll kind of see in the opening of this, they had stopped.

Uh that that had been probably the previous king, they had ordered it, it stopped, they will later use this, uh, later Nehemiah as part of opposition, but that this idea of of both is Jerusalem security for the Persians?

Is it a threat?

Um, will sort of come up a lot, uh, sort of this people sort of twisting what's going on.

Um other things just sort of standing standing out?

I know.

Yeah, so as we kind of approach this, the a post-exile book, um, well, in the middle of the exile, uh, what Nehemiah will take upon is really the sort of the taking a third remnant eventually.

Um that that's not where he starts out with.

I mean, he he starts out really just in in despair, and we've been in prayer, um, in in Babylon, after what was the uh first departure of a group in Cyrus' time, then a second group with Ezra.

And this picks up roughly about 12 years after the book of Ezra.

Um he's gonna end up taking a third group back there to still fairly destroy Jerusalem.

In that past 12 years' time, the the second temple has gotten hastily rebuilt.

Um there Jerusalem is sparsely populated, it's a fairly rural community.

Most people are living out in the fields, the city's walls are not built.

Um there's, as we'll soon see, there are another, as we get deeper into my there's a lot of other problems in the city just uh beyond some of the uh there's a lot of foreign influences, there's a lot of corruption inside the city.

I mean, that was some of the problems uh beyond their idolatry that ended up with them getting exiled.

Um, it's it's not a safe place, it's not a great place to be.

No one really wants to be there.

And and and this is a problem.

Why would it be a problem if nobody wants to be in Jerusalem?

You remember the fact that the people that were alive whenever the temple was original, I mean they could see this funny going up.

Yeah, and you know, they remembered what it really used to look like.

And uh they were just dissatisfied with what was going on.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I remember the original.

Yeah, I remember the original, or my dad told me about the original, and it was not this.

Like, like, like this is not King's, this is not King Solomon's temple, um, this is not the king's this is not the king's palace nearby.

What is this?

Like, what are we playing at?

I've I've lived in Babylon, I've lived in Susa.

Um, in fact, because Nehemiah's writing from Susa, which was the Backup Palace, it was the winter palace for the Persian kings.

He's even further east than Babylon, he's even further away in kind of what is center east Iran in the modern day.

And then they were like, later, they have multiple palaces.

It's like we've got this.

It's like we've got this city with no walls, second-rate temple, and it's like, no thanks, I'll I'll I'm good with the fields.

And no security.

And and some and and as we get deeper into some real problems also.

There's some problems why they don't have security.

On a larger issue, on a spiritual issue, there's a real threat to this.

They're not being one people.

There's a real sense of them just blending again, again with everyone else, which is what a lot of these Jews had done in Babylon.

But God had promised to restore them.

All throughout this, they were going to be one people.

He hadn't promised them a half-finished city.

And so uh let's let's take some scripture to this and take this uh to Nehemiah 1.

This is in your uh so after 12 Chronicles, you get Ezra, Esther, Nehemiah.

Use table of contents if needed.

I don't know about you.

I don't think, as far as Sunday schools, maybe I have, it slips on my mind.

I don't think I've ever sat through one that went through the entire book of Nehemiah.

So, I mean, no uh I've studied a little myself, a book or two, heard sermons on it, certainly.

I don't I'm not sure I've ever sat through a series that went through the whole book about what we're about to do.

On the handouts, you can kind of see our our schedule down there.

It's a little you know loosey-goosey.

Um, some of them look longer than others.

I mean, you have some things in this book that are really they're really lists of people and contributors um that you know that's sort of uh which are worth talking about, but sort of outsize it all.

Um let's give this a read here.

Anyone want to do in chapter one, but I got it.

Yeah, as much as you feel like, yeah.

Okay.

The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakalia.

Now it happened in the month of Gislev in the 20th year, while I was in Suzah, the capital, that Hananai, one of my brothers, and some men from Judah came and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, about Jerusalem.

They said to me, The remnant, there is in the province who survived.

The captivity are in great distress and reproach, and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.

When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

I said, I beseech you, O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who preserves the covenant and loving kindness for those who love him and keep his commandments.

Let your ear now be attentive, and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant, which I which uh uh which I am praying before you now day and night, on behalf of the sons of Israel, your servants confessing the sins of the sons of Israel, which we have sinned against you.

I and my father's house have sinned.

We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses.

Remember the word which you commanded your servant Moses, saying, If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples.

But if you return to me and keep my commandments, and do them through those of you who have been scattered, where in the most remote parts of heavens I will gather them from there and will bring them in the place where I have chosen to cause my name to dwell.

They are your servants and your people whom you redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand.

O Lord, I beseech you, may your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and the prayer of your servants who delight and revere your name, and make your servant successful to they, and grant him compassion be for this man.

Now uh I was the cupbearer to the king.

Thank you, Don.

Alright.

Uh I half-intentionally skipped the open the uh the opening qu the second opening question, but we will come back to it here just partly in the interest of time.

Um what has gone on in Jerusalem?

Walls are broken down.

Walls are broken down.

They're scattered.

They're scattered.

People are yeah.

There's a remnant, it says, so that's the people who are left, it says basically the people who left, there's a remnant there in the province who survived the exile, is in great.

What about them?

Trouble and shame.

Trouble and shame.

Why would they be in shame?

Well, as we said, the walls are broken to hell.

Yeah.

And their whole way of life has been turned upside down.

They haven't been able to accomplish the tasks that they have gone back to do.

They're kind of defenseless without a wall.

No, they're they're not they're not in, yeah, they don't have much of a home.

It's like, you know, here is the city of David.

There's some commentator here, its gates are destroyed by fire.

And um what could this possibly mean?

Now, now it could be could it be referencing like the original Babylonian pillaging?

Uh maybe.

Um it, you know, the the city gets pillaged three times uh, you know, in 2 Chronicles, uh before everybody, you know, before they haul out most of the people living in in the city for Exile and Babylon.

Um it is, however, written in partly in a present tense.

The idea that there's still being what has already even been slightly constructed there again is being is being destroyed to the sense that nobody is trying to fix this place up anymore.

Um it's really just the idea is that Nehemiah comes back.

It's it's a vague word for brother.

Uh uh Han and I will pop back up again later in the book.

Um and so some people say he it could have been a biological brother of Nehemiah.

Uh it it may just mean, you know, very close, you know, religious connection.

Um but he can look at the words he uses, at least in my translation, he asks about the Jews who had escaped.

He says, the ones who got out of here.

It's the remnant left.

We see Nehemiah's attitude towards the people who've gotten out of Babylon, out of Susa, who've gone back, who are fulfilling the promise.

Now that probably helps understand the second question here for verse four.

Why does this cause this reaction in Nehemiah?

He sits down and weeps for days.

Well, the faithfulness of the peoples kind of represents the wall.

It's all broken down.

And he's grieving over the lack of faithfulness and obedience in the people, which is kind of representative of the wall being broken down.

Thank you.

Tim, add some more.

I'm gonna ask a question.

Sure.

I know you're the one who was asking the questions, but please ask me a question.

Um there seems to be a presumption here that the Israelites are responsible for the wall being broken down.

But it seems like if we're not part of the in the crowd, then those who already know.

Someone from the outside is going to ask, what's the what's not being said here?

I mean, what how how do we know that they are responsible?

Well for sure.

Prior to the Babylonian captivity, God warned the Jews if you continue to act in your basically idolatry, worshiping pagan gods, you're gonna be hauled out into captivity.

Right, but that wasn't it's not stated here.

So that's why I'm that's why I'm just asking the question.

Well, I think Nehemiah is basically saying that because of the sin of the Jews, they are right.

They got what was coming.

Right, I'm not arguing the case, I'm just asking the question for for the uh context.

Well, I mean, but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them through your out though you're though your outcast are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I've chosen to name my name to well.

I think that speaks to what you're saying.

I think also there's, if nothing else, a responsibility, they haven't built them back.

Um even if you know, if I live in a house and a fire comes and destroys it, um, whether or not I caused said fire by accident or intention, you know, I can wail, but it's like I've got a responsibility to try to build it back up.

You know, when the fire department says, okay, it's safe, you can start rebuilding, and I just sit on top of the ashes and go, well, it's not worth it.

I'm gonna go pitch a tent out in the fields.

Seems safer, really.

After how many years this was, but maybe he felt like however long it had been, it wasn't gonna happen.

You know, that's exactly you know, in 12 years I expected a lot more to have to happen that did not have not happened.

And all of a sudden he gets his word from his brother.

And it's like, yeah, probably it's not gonna happen, you know.

And he said, General, well, after all this time, yeah, I would expect something better.

You know, I think um one of my favorite books in the Old Testament, and and I don't know if I'll ever teach it through Sunday school, maybe one day, you know, is is the Book of Habakkuk.

Um not just because it's it's really fun to try to say out loud, and and you can say it really wrong, and I may be, and no one will probably ever know.

Um but um if we ever do a series on minor prophets, uh maybe one day, but you know, he you know uh what I think Nehemiah recognizes, and you don't have to have to turn there, is like this is what God said was going to happen to the nation if they didn't turn this around.

On the other end of this, we go about you know a hundred years back of this, you know, we find, maybe longer than that, we find Habakkuk's ministry in the waning days of the second kingdoms, when he says, when Habakkuk complains to God about all the violence, destruction, corruption, justice never going forth, the wicked is all surrounding the righteousness, he complains to God about the state of what was then Judah, and God replines, replies to him with, I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.

I'm about to do something you wouldn't believe.

For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, another name for the Babylonians, that bitter and hasty nation who mark through the breath of the earth and seize dwellings not of their own.

They are dreaded and fearsome, their justice and dignity go forth from themselves, their horses are swifter than leopards and fiercer than the evening wolves, their horsemen press proudly on, their horsemen come from afar, they fly like an eagle, swift to devour.

They all come for violence, all their faces forward, they gather captives like sand.

He's like, that's what I'm going to do to you all.

And I think Nehemiah understands this, and we can get this out of his prayer here in a minute.

He's like, on a certain level, the Babylonians were the instrument.

God did this because we didn't keep the law.

He's like, we were idolaters, we were corrupt, our priests were corrupt, we victimized the innocent, we barely had a king follow him.

The Assyrians chopped off the northern kingdom first, and then we were next.

And here we are.

And then he sits down and weeps.

For me, on a certain level of this, it's this.

They get to go back after all of this.

And then they don't, they get the second temple built, and then they don't really do much of anything.

They're a conquered people.

They've learned nothing.

And it's a continuation of the Old Testament.

The Israelites' biggest enemy is forever themselves.

They just won't follow God.

They get to go back and they say, yay, now we are farmers again.

They were probably farmers just for the Babylonians before.

That's basically what they still are.

We're just gonna go back to doing the same old, same old.

Like nothing has happened.

I don't know about you.

That's a lot of me and my own life with a lot of things.

I come to church, I go on retreats, I have these big moments with God.

I see things, I feel prayer answers, and I'm gonna go, oh, that was nice.

And I forget stuff.

Blame other people for it.

And it breaks my heart some to look back at things I've said, and I just I go back to doing the same old, the same old.

Now Nehemiah recognizes this, and he's in a great place to do this because he's in the king's palace.

He's in the center of captivity.

He's still there.

He probably can't go back because he's in service.

He's the cupbearer.

He's the cupbearer.

They just don't let the cupbearer go.

And so he says and weeps.

They've been there captivity.

He's clearly still been reading the law.

He was probably born and raised there.

But his people are breaking apart.

They're gonna finish for themselves what the Babylonians started.

And he sits and weeps.

And so this third part of question one why do other people not have the same reaction?

Because they don't care.

It's not their problem, it's not their passion.

They're not looking, they're not knowing the scriptures, they're not looking to try to see what God is doing.

But for Nehemiah, this is heartbreaking.

He sees it.

Now, 2026.

I I put this to you because I think Nehemiah is in some ways a great man of action.

And he's often a great man of action in all the ways he does not immediately go take crazy actions.

He doesn't know what's about to happen.

He's a cupbearer to the king.

He's a captive, trusted official, but he's also a cupbearer.

And while he's very well close to the emperor, it's not like he can go run in there into the emperor and go, hey, Artaxerxes, we got an issue.

My people are scattered.

They're not refortifying that city.

Your dad may have told them, or could have been you, uh, to stop fortifying.

Uh let's go do something about it.

Like, remember the Persian tradition?

Esther went and talked to uh the current emperor's dad without an appointment on threat of her life.

So all he can really do for the moment is cry and pray and fast.

And in chapter two, he does that for about five months.

That's all he can do.

Now, you, in your life and times, and I know this for me, may also have things that you care very deeply about.

And I think for me, this is encouraging.

God is going to do some amazing things through using Nehemiah.

But he starts as a guy just totally broken.

And all he can do is pray.

He can think about it, and he can pray, and he can turn it over to God.

He's got to be totally dependent.

He's not even praying for God to, hey, use me in some way to fix this.

That's not his prayer.

It's just, God, remember all the stuff you promised to do.

That's his prayer.

Remember who we are.

We have we confess a lot of things here.

We're gonna break it down here in a minute.

That's what we promise to do.

That's what you promise to do.

Here's who we are, but here's who you are.

And he is just absolutely crushed by all of this.

He's the ex-house come back, his brother has returned, he asked him how it is, he tells him how it is, and he's just crushed by this, and he's crushed for months, and he's just there in captivity.

Now, maybe something is crushing you.

I have things like that in my life.

I have a little sister who is about as lost as I can imagine.

And I tell you right now, you could say, Jason, call her and tell her the gospel, it would be like talking, con talk into a block of concrete.

All I can do is throw that before God every single day.

Only He changes hearts.

I'm like that with a lot of students, with my school, many things about it.

Things about church, other things, like all I can do, things in the world beyond my control.

Stuff I used to have, panic and anxiety.

All I can do is just throw it before God.

That's where Nehemiah is.

He doesn't know all the rest of the stuff's about to happen.

And if he did, he'd cry a lot more if he knew what was coming.

He'd cry a lot more.

He'd sing for joy, he'd get a lot more scared, honestly, if he knew what was coming.

Because mirror last week, who is Nehemiah?

Anybody know?

Anybody remember?

He's not a priest.

He's not a priest.

Not a prophet.

He's not royal.

He's not royal.

He's a guy.

He's just a guy.

He was a cupbearer.

He's a cupbearer.

Um, he's even possibly, I didn't know if I was gonna go here, but I have at least one commentator.

And all we can do is this is put a maybe.

He might have been even forced to be a eunuch.

He's never picked as married here, having kids.

Because he possibly had access to the king's harem.

We'll see him later.

He was serving the king with the queen.

He might have had a lot against the Persians.

And if he was forced to be a eunuch, that would have been involuntary.

And so here's where he is.

So, um, I don't know, thoughts, comments, concerns?

Well, his prayer is about repentance and faith.

And he's praying for the for the people, the Jewish people.

In a sense he's serving as a priest.

Alright.

I don't know if I can get this big enough.

Jenny and Emma can see it, but I'm gonna try.

Alright.

Let's look at his prayer.

He's praying for repentance.

Let's summarize his prayer here a bit.

Alright.

So verses 5 through 7 opens up.

How does he address God?

We're gonna think of Nehemiah's prayer here in kind of four chunks.

Lord God of heaven.

Alright.

Lord God of heaven.

What else?

Great and awesome.

Okay.

Covenant keeper.

Covenant keeping and steadfast love.

For those who keep his commandments.

And what God does.

Who God is and what God does.

God is the covenant keeper.

This is like I'm saying your eyes even open to what's happening.

Yeah.

Are you noticeing this?

Are you seeing this?

Now, we'll call this part one.

He opens up with God, this is who you are.

And I think often, I think a lot of my, I think, at least with me, most affectual prayers, I don't mean affectional as an effective, but I think those in which I'm probably most in touch with biblical portrayals of God, is when I open up with God, here's who you are.

For me, it really stands out that he addresses God as the covenant keeper.

What all these long history Jews in this Old Testament had long forgotten, or had tried like Abraham to fulfill themselves through manipulation?

Nehemiah says, God, you are the covenant keeper, which leads to the following: we are not the covenant keepers.

He says, You are the one who keeps the promises.

So that being said, how does he refer to himself?

Even I and my father's house have sinned.

This is really verse six here.

Basically, we have sinned.

He includes himself.

How have they sinned?

Not keeping the commandments.

Not keeping commandments?

Tim, you want to say something?

I was just gonna say that before, even before we say we have sinned, we identify ourselves as servants.

Right?

Yeah.

So it's the relationship.

The relationship is important.

Humble.

We will call this part B.

So as we hit verses kind of eight and nine here, probably seven through nine.

What is we have acted corruptly against you, we've not kept your commandments, the statutes, and the rules.

It's not just saying, he says, in one way, how we sinned, we have sinned as a people.

And he includes himself in this.

I am also a sinner.

He recognizes his own.

He says, in the end, he says, we have all sinned as a people.

And in some ways, this is all true.

I have sinned individually as a person, greatly.

We have also sinned as a people.

We are all also lawbreakers.

We need our covenant keeper.

Now we have the benefit of the new covenant.

We have the benefit of Christ.

But Nehemiah understands this.

He's saying, God, we need you to be the covenant keeper.

We cannot.

A substantially large amount of forethought and insight for a guy raised in Persia, understanding a whole lot of what his forebearers before him did not.

And this is perhaps one of the most unique things about Nehemiah, if nothing else.

He understands a good bit about God's purposes through Scripture.

Not like Christ, but he understands a good bit that he needs a savior.

And his people need a savior.

And he can't do it.

Alright, so um.

Remember the word that you commanded.

Yes.

He basically says, remember your word.

Remember your covenants.

Basically, God, be who you are.

He says, remember that, do not forget us.

If you are faithful, I will scatter you, but if you return and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place I have chosen and make my man, my name, dwell there.

So he says, Bring us back.

He said, Remember your covenants, bring us back, basically.

Alright.

And so then let's look at how.

Let's summarize verses 10 through 11 here.

They are your servants and your people whom you have redeemed by your great power and strong hand.

O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name.

Give success to your servants today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.

How would we sort of sum up here verses 10 through 11?

Listen to me and give me success and mercy.

Yes.

Why?

He said, let your ear be attentive, you know, listen to what I'm saying and give your servant success and grant him mercy at the end of verse 11.

Is he getting ready to approach the king?

Actually, no.

He may be, honestly, maybe some of this takes up, because he's not going to approach the king for months.

And what you've kind of seen again next week, he doesn't as much approach the king as the king sees him with a downcast look on his face and starts a conversation with him.

However, he's clearly been thinking about it a lot when the king starts talking to him.

And maybe he's ready for that moment.

He has a very un-Esther-like moment.

Like Esther marches in there to go see the king and says, and to invite him to a banquet.

Nehemiah has a Arta Xerxes turns around and goes, What's wrong with your face?

That's basically like, why do you look like that?

That's basically what happens in chapter two.

Esther was in a little higher position then.

Yeah, yeah.

Esther's in a little higher position.

But we'll come to the next week.

You don't want your cupbearer looking depressed.

That's a bad sign.

You want your cupbearer to be a happy guy.

They need to look like they're having a good time.

If your cupbearer is feeling off, the guy who checked your drink for poison, that's that's a concern.

So yeah, so he says, listen.

But also, he says, listen and give success.

So yeah, maybe he's clearly already thinking about this.

I can talk to the king.

He doesn't run out and go do it.

Um, but he also says, you've redeemed us, he says.

This is who you are.

So he's basically asking God to fulfill his purpose.

Yes.

For his people.

Yes.

And so one thing I think stands out, and this isn't a traditional A, B, B, A, Rhymes scheme, like you might have in English poetry, but he starts off with here, this is about God.

Here is the confession, then here is our need, and then God basically, once again, be who you are.

And so he sandwiches himself and his people in between his prayer of God here as you are, here's who we are, here's why I'm here.

God please be who you are.

Do what you said in line with who you are.

This is Nehemiah's prayer.

Now, it may seem kind of formal, but for me, I mean, I think think about in terms of a structure, I find it kind of useful and instructive.

You know, you know, and often as I think of some of the prayers I've sort of prayed in in my life, which have been sometimes tongue-in-cheek, and honestly, sometimes the best prayer in my life has sometimes just been help.

Um God, I did it again.

Um, but in thinking about this, uh, is he acknowledges who God is, he confesses his sins, he says what's on his heart, and then he puts that in context of who he's already said who God is.

Not because prayer, like this, is a magic spell, we're not prayer of Jabezing uh um up here today, if you know that reference.

If you don't, don't go look it up.

But um uh but but I just want to be clear, that's not what I'm doing up here.

Um but we see Nehemiah's heart posture here.

And and for me, I think, and it's one of the things I think for Nehemiah that stands out to me is in those moments I'm broken, and when I feel that I really need God, what is my heart posture as I go to prayer?

Am I all demanding, am I acknowledging who God is, my frankly own parts in my own problems, my own generational parts in my own problems?

Am I depending on who God is in the world?

Am I really just depending on the fact that I really don't control all that much?

Yeah, Richard.

You know, just reading this.

His prayer mentioned the Norse prayer.

And you know, Norse prayer is, you know, remember you know his disciples asked him to teach him how to pray.

So he taught him how to pray by praying that prayer.

And as we think about Nehemiah and this phenomenal distress he felt up here in the report, how heavy his heart was we think of ourselves so many times we have major issues, personal issues, family, whatever it might be.

That's really a heavy burden to us.

But Jesus taught us to pray how, by beginning, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.

And that's what he did right in the beginning.

It's really interesting.

You know, with all this burden and most of his prayers talking about confession and reminding God's covered promises.

But it's just good to be reminded again, Jesus taught us to pray, and we better learn how to pray like he did.

Instead of, Lord, give me this, Lord, fix this, which is what I do too many times.

One of the things that the Lord has taught me personally in the last several years, and I try to teach those guys over in River Bend, is when you pray, before you start, remember who you're talking to.

Even before you start, remember who you're talking to.

And uh Jesus taught us that.

Then forgive us certain things, then give us this day, daily bread, etc.

etc.

And DMI did the same thing.

It's just you know, it just hit me when I'm sitting there listening and reading it.

Always learn from Jesus.

And you know, I think if I'm saying, hallowed be my name, or some form of that in my prayers, I'm saying, God, your name is holy, that immediately applies, mine is not.

But it also the fact that Jesus said is that importance of that commandment, like don't take God's name in vain.

It really is God is holy.

And when we talk to him, we get to talk to a holy God.

And I I think Nehemiah is very aware of that.

That a holy God has sent them back, and then they've they're once again not acting like his people.

They're sort of just drifting, going through motions, if you like.

They're afraid, um, they're part partially corrupt.

Uh they are once again taking a lot of, as we'll see later, some of them foreign wives.

Um it's uh the cycle repeats.

Yeah.

I was just reading uh Leviticus, where is it?

I don't know, 26.

And you read that of how bad things were, you know.

And God told them was what happened and everything, you know.

It's interesting to think, you know, why didn't God, as Tim said, why didn't God carry him off to captivity?

Man, it says in Leviticus, they did things more important than what the Canaanites were doing before God gave them the land.

So that's really bad, bad, bad everything.

But the thing that's interesting about this, God always has a remnant.

I mean, this man, Nehemiah, he was not a priest or all things, but he knew the covenant.

He knew the law, he knew what God had said, both warnings and in promise.

And it just reminds me that God always has a covenant people, even in the midst of debauchery and whatever else.

And so that's encouraging.

That's encouraging to teach, pass over the next generation.

And I think as we focus on this, Richard, you said by keeping Jesus comes back then.

He goes into that temple.

He turns over those tables, those money lenders.

And what does he say about his house?

What does he say?

They turn into Genothees, my house shall be a house of prayer.

It's like that's where you that's where you start with this.

It's like, he says, what identifies my people?

It says, and I've got that JC Rao quote down there.

I don't think we have time for it today, but it's like, it's like, ultimately, are you a praying people?

Now Nehemiah here is a praying person.

At one point, when this group of Jews came back with Ezra, they were a praying people, but they've drifted from it.

They're barely coming to the temple.

We'll ever see they've later even leased out all the storehouses to some of the Samaritans so they could just use them as spare warehouses.

They're not a praying people.

And so I bring this.

Not only should you pray when it's bad, God wants your prayers.

As Paul said, pray continually.

Those moments of grief, those moments of anguish, those moments of loss, those moments of despair, those moments of joy.

We are people who pray.

Not because it's the, not because we're on our last straw, but because that's our first straw.

That's where we start with prayer.

Because God answers prayer.

Not always with how we imagined, sometimes generationally into the future.

But God hears and answers prayer.

And I don't think he's about to answer this one in exactly the way honestly it's gonna look like because Nehemiah is kind of fact-based.

He writes it just kind of in a short, simple history.

Here's the thing that happens next.

I trust me, I honestly I meet him in heaven.

I'm gonna ask him, did God answer you this in exactly the way you thought it was about to happen?

He's gonna say, Oh, heavens no.

I did not think the the the Nehemiah II after Nehemiah, there's no way I thought God was gonna answer this exactly the step ones, and the stuff after that, he was like, Oh, no way.

Um, no way.

Um he's the cupbearer, maybe a eunuch.

And if you don't know the end of the story, he's gonna end up a governor by the end of this.

And that's not like one step.

For a while, you know.

So, alright.

Um I don't know.

Closing thoughts.

We won't get through all the questions, but uh, I usually don't.

I got a lot in case you all get quiet.

Alright, lots of bits to say.

Other guys are gonna be back next week, so if you if you want to word it edge wise, here's your chance.

Alright.

Oh, we can stop a minute or two here.

Give you all a little more time for fellowshipping.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father.

Holy God.

Thank you so much for being a God who sees, a God who listens, a God who hears prayers, Lord.

Thank you for being the God who keeps covenants, who remembers us through all these disasters, these losses, even when we drift, Lord.

Remember us, Lord.

We are a people who has forsaken your word and your ways many times, Lord.

But we depend on you as that covenant keeper, Lord, on your gospel, on the salvation of Jesus Christ, Lord.

Instill in us with your strength, Lord, to come to you on our knees every day.

With a posture of remembering who you are, Lord, and with a care for people beyond our concerns.

Break our hearts for where they need to be broken.

And encourage us to pray boldly, based on your nature, Lord, for all that we do.

Let us praise you for who you are as we go from this place, Lord.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

Sam Tom, next week.